Looking for a fun way to dress up your Easter table setting? Or maybe you want a fun DIY activity to do with the kids?!
Using minimal ingredients that you have laying around the house, in the pantry or the fridge, you can create beautifully coloured Easter eggs to display at your next gathering.
You'll need a tiny bit of an imagination to come up with your colouring agents but here are a few ideas:
Tea leaves, coffee grounds, coloured spices like paprika, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, or cut up some vegetables with vibrant colours like beets and red cabbage.
For the eggs pictured above I used the following colouring agents:
Dark brown: 1 tbsp hibiscus tea leaves
Light brown: 1 tbsp cinnamon
Blue: 3 drops blue food colouring. The design was done by wrapping an elastic band around the egg.
A few suggestions to make some fun designs on your eggs include wrapping an elastic band around the egg (make sure it's tight, if too loose it will unravel when boiling in the water). Use wax crayons to draw designs on the egg prior to boiling them. The wax will repel the colouring leaving your polka dot design or the name you've written on the egg.
What you'll need:
- A saucepan for every egg colour you want to make
- Tap water, enough to cover the eggs in the saucepan
- A ladle, ideally with drainage holes in the bottom
- Eggs, hard boiled or not
- Vinegar
- Coloured spices, tea, coffee or food colouring
Recipe for one batch of coloured eggs:
- Desired amount of eggs you want in the one colour
- Enough water in a saucepan to cover the eggs
- 3 tsp of vinegar
- 1-2 tbsp of coloured spice, tea or coffee. If using food colouring, just 3 drops
Bring the water in a saucepan to a boil. Add colouring agent (example: paprika) and vinegar to the boiling water and stir so the colour is consistent throughout the water. Gently drop your egg (hard boiled or not) into the coloured water. The egg will boil in the water anywhere from 20-30 minutes, the longer it boils, the more concentrated the colour becomes. While the egg is boiling make sure to intermittently stir them around in the water so you get an even coat of colouring. If the egg rests in one spot it will have a darker concentration of colouring in the spots it was sitting.
Once the egg reaches its desired colour, transfer it to a wire rack or a plate with a paper towel on it to cool and dry. If you've wrapped an elastic band around some of your eggs, wait for the egg to cool fully before taking the elastic off.
If you'd like to see the video demo of this craft you can view it on my Instagram account @cksoakbathco. Look for the eggs!